Artur Schopenhauer, alongside Kant, Hegel and Marx, is one of the most important German philosophers. His thought is also popular in Poland, but few people associate that this genius philosopher was a Gdańsk citizen by birth. He was born in a tenement house at św. Ducha 47 Street, where today a relevant memorial board can be seen. But admittedly, his connections with Gdańsk were unfortunately quite short. As early as his childhood, his family left the city forever, unable to accept the second partition of Poland and the annexation of Gdańsk by Prussia. The Schopenhauers moved to France, then lived temporarily in England and the Netherlands. Artur eventually settled in Germany, where he undertook studies and developed his philosophical system. The inspiration for his thoughts was the wisdom of ancient India, which began to penetrate the consciousness of Europeans in the early nineteenth century. In Schopenhauer’s system, the world is perceived as an image, and all experienced phenomena constitute merely an illusion for man. Schopenhauer’s vision is filled with an extremely pessimistic view of the world, stemming from voluntary metaphysics. The fate of man is bitter and devoid of real hope, for all his actions are determined only by an unreasonable and unintentional urge which never knows full relief. According to Schopenhauer, life is an eternal torment, and true happiness cannot be achieved in it. The only sources of short-lived relief that the philosopher sees are based on experiencing human compassion and art. Apart from this pessimistic philosophy, Schopenhauer’s output also contains a more practical part. Namely, he has developed eristic, or a method of conducting discussion, in view of characterising unfair methods of argumentation. While in Gdansk, it is worth visiting św. Ducha Street and seeing the traces of this famous philosopher.